This morning it was POURING rain! We got onto the ferry and crossed back over to the main land, and traveled to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Park. It was a very humbling experience. We went at our own pace, with our audio guides, and learned about how Japan was before the USA dropped...Read More
I love this island. A fun fact: there are tons of small, wild deer that are completely tame. I actually saw some of them posing for pictures with big groups (I am sure the photographer had food or something to make them cooperate). Be weary of paper or clothing though, they tend to eat them...Read More
The word `castle` makes me light up inside. I am filled with thoughts of kings and queens, romance and war, fantasy and imagination, so I was really looking forward to seeing Osaka Castle today (you are hearing this from a 27 year old female who was raised on Disney). Let me tell you, though it...Read More
Bright and early at 6am, the temple has a prayer service. Guests are welcome to join and participate or observe this prayer time with the monks which involves chanting certain traditional phrases in a monotone pitch. I personally did not attend, but I could hear the prayers down the hall. At 7am, we had breakfast,...Read More
Today was a long day of traveling on subways, trains, busses, and cable cars. We arrived around 4pm at our ryokan, which was the Jokiin Buddhist Temple. Jokiin means always joyous. Koyasan is such a beautiful mountain town, though right now it was VERY cold. They had received some snow right before we arrived, and...Read More
Takayama is a sweet, smaller town with a population around 100,000. It is a very different pace than Tokyo, and reminds me more of home. I actually learned that Takayama is a sister city to Denver, and we did have some snow here, so that must be why I felt more at home here. This...Read More
Before I forget, I wanted to share a few pieces of information with you. Our guide, Charlie, asked us if we knew why the cherry blossom trees are so beautiful, and it was because they don’t have any leaves with the blossom. I never realized or thought of that, so I thought it was neat. ...Read More
The next day was our free day in Tokyo. Marshall, Paola and I decided to brave the subway stations together (we figured getting lost in a group would be more comforting than getting lost alone). The subways are really great here and very straightforward, so good news, we didn’t get lost. We went to Ueno...Read More
Well today on our scheduled itinerary, we were supposed to go to Kamakura, but there was a huge storm coming in, and our guide, Charlie, advised us that the trains often close down for these types of storms and he did not want us to get stuck (another group a while back had this happen...Read More
Today was a busy but fun-filled day! We started the morning going to the Tsukiji Fish Market. There were SO many different fresh sea creatures for sale (some still alive). All the workers were busy milling around, and it was fun to look around at all the different things.Read More
